What Counts as Science?

The arXiv preprint service is trying to answer an age-old question.

Before arXiv, preprint papers were available only within small scientific circles, distributed by hand and by mail, and the journals in which they were ultimately published months later (if they were published at all) were holed up in university libraries. But arXiv has democratized the playing field, giving scientists instant access to ideas from all kinds of colleagues, all over the world, from prestigious chairs at elite universities to post-docs drudging away at off-brand institutions and scientists in developing countries with meager research support.